Dr. Greene’s Answer:

Speaking generally, the total amount of sleep a child gets is more important than how they schedule that sleep. The typical 2-year-old averages about 12-13 hours of sleep over 24 hours, but an hour or so more or less than that can be normal.

The average 2-year-old gets about 90 minutes of the total during the day as one or more naps — but again more or less than that can be fine.

Some individual children do fine with no nap at all at that age. Others seem to really benefit from a nap. When it comes to this, parents’ intuition is usually accurate about what their children need.

Dr. Greene is the founder of DrGreene.com (cited by the AMA as “the pioneer physician Web site”), a practicing pediatrician, father of four, & author of Raising Baby Green & Feeding Baby Green. He appears frequently in the media including such venues as the The New York Times, the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, & the Dr. Oz Show.